


Peau de Bête

by Crystalshard



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: Body Horror, Death of an animal, Gen, Hunting, Injury, Medical Procedures, Redemption, Sickness, Transformation, Trapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 21:23:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalshard/pseuds/Crystalshard
Summary: When Gaston falls from the castle, everyone believes he's dead. When the Prince sheds his curse, everyone believes it's gone.Instead, the curse of the beast transfers to Gaston, saving his life but giving him the appearance of the brute that he is inside. Forced out of his old village, Gaston has far to go and much to learn . . . and he has to do it before his own rose runs out of petals.





	Peau de Bête

**Author's Note:**

> The M rating is for violence. Please see the notes at the end if you're sensitive to anything I've put in the tags, and please let me know if there's something else I should tag for.

Gaston howled as he fell, down and further down to the rocks below. Amid the fear, a hint of triumph - he'd killed the beast. If he couldn't have Belle, then neither would that hideous monster. It was a thin, hot point of satisfaction amid the overwhelming knowledge that he was falling - 

The breath was knocked out of him as he hit, the agony swallowing everything but the need to scream. The strong, perfect body he had gloried in was shattered, bleeding, unresponsive. 

_No! Not like this! I won't!_

Atop the castle, light gleamed, bright and overwhelming even as his vision darkened. Had the castle had been set on fire? Had LeFou reached them after all? No, the light was wrong, more like sunrise, and . . . the dark. The dark seemed to flow down towards him, chased by the light, converging on him. And then it was more pain than he could stand and none at all, and he still couldn't scream. 

When it passed, Gaston was panting, deeper and louder than he had ever done before. The stones below the castle were still drenched in shadow, but his body felt strong and whole. He felt a rush of vicious pleasure as he stretched and stood up, revelling in the knowledge that the world had given him back what he was due. 

Something soft fell off his chest, pattering to the ground, and he picked it up in confusion. A rose? Why would - 

\- his hand. His hand was covered in rough hide, with claws where his nails had once been. Frantic, Gaston dropped the flower, scratching at the leather with his other hand. His leathery, ugly, monstrous hand. 

His claws scratched through the top layer, and he bellowed in pain as he looked down in disbelief. Blood. Those weren't some kind of disgusting glove, they were _his hands_. Frantic now, he patted down his body, the rags of the fine clothing he'd been wearing barely hanging on him. Fur, patchy fur, not the manly chest-rug he'd been so proud of. His skin was toughened hide all over, and his head - no, no, where was his hair? He patted further up, and his hands closed around faintly velvety protrusions coming up from his head. 

Antlers. He had _antlers_. Like the deer he used to hunt. And not little ones, ones he could conceal with a hooded cloak - no, they grew up nearly as far as he could reach, the full rack of a stag in summer. The horns came to sharp points, sharper than any wild deer's. 

Not knowing what he was running from, but knowing only that he had to, Gaston turned and bolted towards the forest. As he ran, he crushed the shimmering rose under one heavy foot. 

* * * 

Any hunter could have tracked him by the crushed vegetation Gaston left in his wake; the broken twigs from where his new antlers had ripped through the lower branches, the flattened bushes, the torn-up ground where his toe-claws had dug into the earth. And still, Gaston didn't stop until he was miles away from the village where he'd been lord in all but name. 

Finally, panting, Gaston stopped next to a still pool and buried his face in it to drink. Some lingering memory, of thirst as a child while hunting and the nausea that came from a bellyful of water drunk too swiftly, stopped him guzzling it down like an overworked horse. 

It took him a while to be sated, but eventually he lifted his face from the water and stared down at his reflection. 

"Ugh, I'm _hideous!_ " he said, and the creature in the pool mirrored his speech. Even his voice had changed, dropped to a deeper register, as rough as if his throat were more suited to growling. Gaston ripped off what remained of his clothing and looked again. 

The eyes in that face, filled with horror, the pupils so wide he could barely see the blue in them, were the only part Gaston recognised of himself. The strong-boned face had warped, the forehead bulging even as his jawline extended into a kind of muzzle or snout over forward-facing eyes. His nose was that of a pig, but the ears under his antlers were those of a wolf. His skin was a patchwork of hides, boar and bear, wolf and stag. All of the animals he knew from the forest, all animals he'd . . .

Hunted. 

His fist smashed into the water, which soaked him to the skin but had little effect on the pond. Deprived of his target, Gaston roared and ripped at the ground nearby. Dirt clods came away, the destruction more satisfying as he imagined ripping apart the body of the Beast that he had slain. And then the body turned into Belle, and he reached down to bite through that slim, lovely throat. 

All he got for his fantasies was a mouthful of mud. 

Gaston spat the soil out, then growled under his breath. Belle. If it hadn't been for her, he'd never have been forced to go confront the Beast, would never have fallen and been remade as this hideous creature. Without the Beast's protection, she would be vulnerable. 

Lowering his chin, his eyes took on a familiar, malicious glitter. Belle would pay, and he would show her how wrong she was to have rejected him. And the villagers would see that he had dealt with the one who'd brought the fear of the Beast to their town, and he would take the castle as his own. It was only fitting. 

First things first, though. Food. 

* * * 

LeFou, trembling in every muscle, the muzzle of the blunderbuss shaking so wildly that he'd have trouble hitting a barn door at close range, limped towards Gaston's house. The moonlight from above and the lights from the houses around him gave him his path in the night, a path he had walked a thousand times. 

There was something in there, a wild animal, thumping around in the dark. LeFou's teeth began to chatter as he inched close enough to hear chewing noises. It was all too easy to imagine the animal chewing on his own flesh. Gaston might be dead, but if his house was torn apart by hungry animals, then LeFou was grimly certain Gaston would find a way to rise from the dead and blame LeFou for it. 

LeFou cautiously inched the door open. Even in the puddle of moonlight falling through the open window, it was difficult to see what was going on. The chewing noises were louder now, crunching and cracking and . . . 

The thing reared up, and LeFou yelped "Bear!" before turning to flee. A claw-tipped paw snaked out to grab him by the ankle, holding him upside-down in front of a face that wasn't bear-like at all. 

LeFou dropped the blunderbuss, the impact jarring the gun and triggering it with a booming crack. The lead ball buried itself safely in an animal carcass, and the brute roared. Its breath stank like . . . like it had been eating the game birds Gaston had hung up a few days ago. A couple of goose feathers were stuck between its snaggly teeth. 

And then it spoke. 

"LeFou?" it growled, its voice deep and oddly . . . familiar?

"Help, let me go, how do you know my name, let me go!" LeFou babbled, flailing in a vain attempt to get free. To his surprise, the monster let go, dropping LeFou on his head. 

"LeFou, it's me! It's Gaston! You know me."

"Gaston's dead, he's . . ." LeFou flinched as the brute stepped closer, the ripped-off window shutters crunching under its feet. The thing looked even uglier in the moonlight, the antlers that crowned its head looking out of place in their elegance. "Stay back!" 

"I did not come all this way and survive a two hundred foot drop . . ." the brute growled, eyes narrowing, and for a moment there was nothing but fear, trickling icy and paralysing down LeFou's spine. And then LeFou looked into its eyes, and realised that they were as familiar as the thoughtless arrogance. 

"It's you? You're alive? Gaston! But how did . . ." 

Gaston picked the feathers out of his teeth and stomped over to sit on the heavy wood-framed bed he'd built himself. "Belle," he said viciously. "She's some kind of witch, I swear! I slew that hideous Beast, and then I found myself turned into . . . _this_." 

LeFou frowned, shaking his head. How could . . . no, Gaston couldn't be right, could he? "But . . . the Beast, he was Prince Adam all along. We remember, now. There's a notice in the town square, he's marrying Belle in a week's time. Everyone in that mob you led got forgiven, the women are all making dresses and there's going to be a ball and a feast at the castle . . ." 

"What!" bellowed Gaston, erupting from the bed amid a flurry of furs. His long legs took him to the door faster than LeFou could keep up with, and the smaller man found himself trotting along at Gaston's heels once more. Neither noticed the glimmering rose left behind on Gaston's bed. 

"Stop," LeFou pleaded, knowing his begging would go unheard but trying anyway. "Gaston, wait, there are still people around . . ." 

But Gaston didn't stop. He stalked to the town square and ripped down the elegantly calligraphed notice, blue eyes raking over it as if he could change the words through sheer force of rage. 

"What is this!" Gaston demanded again, shaking the paper at LeFou. 

"The wedding notice, I told you before -" 

They were interrupted by a shriek of fear. The girl, who LeFou knew as Angelique but whom Gaston probably thought of as 'the triplet in the yellow dress', had dropped her heavy wooden bucket by her feet and was screaming loud enough to wake the neighbours. Cold fountain water was soaking into her slippers, but the girl didn't seem to care. She seemed frozen to the spot, unable to move even as Gaston advanced on her. The notice fluttered away as Gaston lost interest in it, and LeFou snatched it up, hugging it to his chest protectively. 

"Silence, woman!" Gaston demanded, but it only seemed to ratchet the screaming up a notch. 

"Hey, leave her alone!" a voice demanded. LeFou's eyes widened in horror as he saw what was about to happen, but there was no way he could prevent it. 

Gaston's arm swung around, backhanding the speaker into the wooden cart that had been left there. The wooden cart was a good ten feet away, and the young boy arced through the air before meeting the wooden side of the cart with an audible thump. He slumped to the ground, dazed or dead, and Gaston snarled. The sound was echoed by the muttering of the audience that had assembled without LeFou noticing. More and more people were pouring into the square, and none of them looked friendly. "No," Gaston managed, looking down at his paw in horror, and the crowd gasped to hear a monster speak. "No, I didn't - I wasn't . . ." 

Angelique's pink-clad sister knelt next to the boy. "He's still breathing," she called, which stilled some of the muttering. Then - Antoinette, that was her name - stood, turning her attention to Gaston. "You brute!" she said shrilly, fear widening her eyes even as she held her ground. "How dare you!" 

The third sister, Arielle, robed in her signature green, had taken her place next to Angelique and was hugging her sobbing sister. "We should call for the Prince!" she declared, and there were nods and mutters of assent. For a moment, LeFou's world felt as if it had turned from east to west. The Beast was a Prince, and had become someone the town looked up to. Gaston was a monster, as hideous on the outside as he had once been beautiful. All this, in less than two days. His head was spinning, and he needed some kind of solid ground. Any kind. 

"No, don't!" Gaston pleaded. "Look, I'm Gaston, you don't need to fear me -" 

"Gaston is dead!" one of the men in the crowd roared back. It was too dark to see faces, even with the burning torches some were bringing with them. "This brute must have eaten him!" 

"Gaston was a bully," one sardonic voice said. "Maybe we should be thanking it." 

"I swear, I'm Gaston!" the monster pleaded. "You used to admire me." 

" _That_ was before we knew what a true Beast was," said another angry voice. "Gaston or brute, we don't want you here!" 

This brought cries of agreement from the growing crowd. The torchlight was glinting off metal now, pitchforks and butchers' knives and the kind of implements-turned-weapons they had so recently used against their Prince. LeFou could see what was going to happen, and suddenly, smoothly, his wavering choices settled. 

Leaping to the lip of the fountain, he snatched a torch from a nearby townsperson and shoved the wedding notice into their hands in trade. "Run the brute out of town!" LeFou howled, eyes narrowing as he stared down the thing that he'd once called friend. The villagers were right. Gaston was a bully, who'd abused and mocked more of the townsfolk than just him, who'd used his strength for no-one's gain but his own. 

"Yes!" the crowd-turned-mob screamed in return. LeFou caught Gaston's eyes one more time, trading a grin for the betrayed look in the brute's eyes. And then the crowd surged, and Gaston was running as the mob chased him back into the forest. 

* * * 

It had been easy enough to leave the villagers behind. These were _his_ woods, he knew them like no other, and none could hunt and track in them better than Gaston. 

Snarling, Gaston dug his new claws into a nearby oak and hauled himself up. In this new and animalistic body, it would have been near effortless were it not for the antlers that seemed to catch on every twig and knothole as he climbed. His toe-claws left deep indents in the bark as he fought his way higher, as high as he could go before the branches began to creak warningly. 

Those petty, traitorous, small-minded villagers! They'd adored him, respected him, thanked him for hunting down the dangerous beasts in the forest. And now that he was hideous, they threw him out of town? No, they had no right to do that, not if they admitted that the beast they'd feared was now a prince. Gaston had been one of them. He would teach them that things were better with him in the village, as always. At least Belle had rejected him openly; the others had turned on him when they _should_ have been celebrating Gaston's own miraculous return. 

As for that fool of a boy! He should have known better than to interfere with something as strong and fearsome as Gaston was now. At least the boy would exercise better caution in the future. 

Gaston growled, claws scratching restlessly at the mangled tree bark as a familiar, smouldering anger took hold. Yes. The villagers would learn that they needed him. He needed something . . . a wolf attack, perhaps. On the sheep. Sheep were always getting carried off by wolves, weren't they? If he lured a wolf or two out of the forest . . .

Wood snapped under his clenched fist, and Gaston looked down at his hand in surprise. Then his eyes narrowed. 

Why go to the effort of luring a wolf, when it would surely be easier to do it himself? 

* * * 

The red sun slipped below the horizon as Gaston crept near the communal paddock set aside for the sheep. From his position downwind, they shouldn't be able to smell him until he got too close for it to matter, and then all it would take would be a single pounce. He would be away before the shepherds could see him or stop him. Then he would contact LeFou again, pledge to hunt down the wolves, kill a few, and he would have his home back again. 

It was harder than Gaston had expected to catch a sheep. 

The fat, foolish sacks of mutton had been settling down for the night, and he'd been nearly on top of them when the wind changed. One of the sheep had lifted its head, nostrils flaring, and bleated in alarm. That had been enough to rouse the flock, and Gaston had lunged and found nothing but earth beneath his claws. Hoofbeats drummed their way to the other side of the field. 

Gaston was in pursuit of the flock, but every sheep seemed determined to bunch up with the others. They ran side by side, a mass of wool and flailing legs, and in the dim light it was harder than he'd thought to pick one out. If he didn't kill a sheep now, the shepherds would hear the noise and his ruse would be over. Even if he got away, they'd be on better guard next time. It had to be now. 

Crouching, Gaston aimed for the middle of the flock. He'd get at least something that way. 

He leapt.

Something punched his shoulder. 

There was a very familiar _bang_. 

He landed face-down in the grass. 

The sheep stampeded back to the other side of the field, the flock parting and flowing around a man who was silhouetted against the last rays of sunset. The man lifted something that glinted in the dying sun. 

"Wretch! Varmint! Stay away from my flock, you hear?" The shepherd sighted on Gaston with the blunderbuss, hands steady and clearly willing to fire again. 

Gaston snarled, pushing up and then collapsing as the wound in his shoulder send a shock of pain through him. What - but - he'd been _shot?_ He sucked in a surprised breath, and then found that he couldn't stop the too-fast panting. 

Gaston's first instinct was to roar, to intimidate, but self-preservation silenced him. The next bullet might strike him somewhere more necessary than a shoulder. Pushing up on his good arm alone, Gaston staggered to his feet and took an unsteady step towards the forest. Away from the sheep. Took another, the bell-muzzle of the blunderbuss tracking him, and another and another until his leg hit the fence. 

Steadying himself on a fencepost, Gaston paused, his breathing settling a little more. "Please," he said, trying for charm and losing it in the deeper growl of his new voice. "I'm hungry, that's all. I don't mean any harm." 

The gun never wavered. "You chase my sheep into a frenzy, you scare the wool half off 'em, and you say you mean no harm? Get off this land! Get!" 

Gaston went, his stomping, staggering form swallowed by the dark under the trees. Behind him, at the edge of the forest, a rose petal fluttered to the ground. 

* * * 

Stealing a shirt from the man's laundry line was little enough payback, but it would have to do. Given that he was using the garment to bind the wound the shepherd had inflicted, Gaston considered that the man owed him a shirt. 

Chewing on the last of an unlucky, fire-seared rabbit, Gaston thought hard as firelight flickered before his eyes. The sheep were too well defended. Belle and the apparently former Beast were ensconced in a castle he wasn't going to risk approaching again, and he was not - quite - ready to attack faces he knew from the village and the inn. Not intentionally. LeFou or some other villager would have claimed his house and possessions now, if they hadn't been beguiled by the potential for destruction. There was a reason mobs carried torches. 

There was nothing for him here. 

* * * 

Gaston walked for the better part of a week, avoiding towns and villages and farmhouses. When he could, he kept to the concealment of the trees; when there were no convenient forests, he travelled by night. He didn't care which direction he went in as long as it was _away_. Away from humiliation and pain. Away from Belle, from _Prince Adam_ , from LeFou and the villagers. Away from the place where he'd one been beautiful and had been remade a brute. 

When he slept, he slept under a bush, up a tree, anywhere halfway concealed. He might no longer be a man, but he was still a hunter, and he could build fires and catch his own food. Rabbits were somehow easier than sheep. 

Every night, he checked his shoulder. Washed the shirt in cold water when he could, pressed chilly fabric to the bullet wound. It didn't help; the skin grew puffy and hot, painful and raw, and he had no choice but to keep going. Who would treat such a monstrous creature as himself? In his former life, he had disdained herbalists - what could ever be manly about picking flowers and weeds? If there was one nearby, however, he would bite his tongue long enough for them to treat his injury. 

No magically summoned herbalists appeared. Gaston kept walking. 

* * * 

The shack in the forest was well hidden. Gaston found it more by smell than sight, by the pungent reek of some half-familiar herbal compound. Lured by hope, he sneaked closer. There were sounds coming from within, the clink of precious glassware, the tapping of someone measuring something. Perhaps he could scare the herbalist into treating him, or at least into leaving while he searched for something that might help. Cautiously, Gaston leaned sideways to peer through the window. 

"Come in!" said a sharp voice. "Or go away. Either way, you're blocking the light." 

Startled, Gaston ducked into the shack, his antlers scraping the ceiling. It was bigger than he'd thought from what could be seen outside, dug into a steep bank, the shack proving to be only the entrance. It was also clearly more of a workroom than a dwelling, despite the pallet laid out in the corner. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling - lavender, he recognised, but not much else - with jars and bottles filled with mysterious substances lining shelves and cupboards along the walls. And, in a pottery vase on the table, a single, glimmering, red rose. 

"You're a tall one, aren't you?" commented the acidic voice. 

Belatedly, Gaston to face the owner of the voice. Blue eyes squinted up at him from a face rather younger than Gaston had expected. A man in his mid-twenties, perhaps, but not much older. Short, raggedly cut brown hair capped a frowning face, unremarkable but for a nose that protruded like a raptor's beak. 

"Go ahead, stare," the man said. "I'm Pierre. Who are you, and what are you doing in my workshop?" 

Gaston swallowed. The man must be blind, or near to it, if he couldn't see the animalistic features of the creature Gaston had become. "My - my name is Gaston," he said, voice rough from disuse. "I - bullet in my shoulder. Infected. You must heal it for me." 

Pierre eyed him unfavourably."Must? Sit down, then while I find my glasses," he commanded. 

Gaston froze. If Pierre got a good look at him . . . "Oh, that won't be necessary, I'll just -" he rasped. 

_"Sit. Down,"_ Pierre repeated, throwing a straw-stuffed sack at Gaston with surprising accuracy. Gaston caught it, bemused, and obediently sat on it. One of the seams popped under his weight. 

_What an ill-made piece of rubbish,_ he thought. Gaston had owned better back home, sewn from deerhide and stuffed with goose feathers. LeFou would be resting on them right now, no doubt. 

Fingers grabbed his muzzle-like jaw and tugged him around to stare into eyes that seemed smaller behind their wire-framed spectacles. 

"Hm. That explains a lot," Pierre said critically. "Left shoulder wound, I see." 

"What do you mean, _that explains a lot_?" Gaston snarled. 

Clearly unimpressed, Pierre tapped Gaston on his pig-like nose. "I've seen this kind of magic before. A very clever and intricate piece of sorcery." Pierre opened a set of surgical tools in a canvas roll, each tool in its own pocket, and laid them out on the table next to the vase with a practised flick of his wrist. "I take it that the bullet is still in there?" 

"Yes," Gaston gritted. Then the rest of it sank in. "You - you've seen it before? How do I change back?" 

Pierre, who was now scrubbing his hands and arms with strong-smelling soap, gave Gaston an opaque look. "Love and be loved." 

"What fairytale nonsense is that?" Gaston complained. 

"After a transformation like yours, it's the kind of fairytale you're living in. Bite down on this." 

Pierre shoved a thick piece of rope between Gaston's pointed teeth, and Gaston closed his mouth in surprise. Then his eyes narrowed, and he growled something that would have been rude if it hadn't been so muffled. 

Pierre laughed, peeling the stained shirt-turned-bandage away from Gaston's shoulder with surprisingly gentle hands. "True. Now stay still, this is going to hurt." 

As Gaston muffled a scream in the rope, he decided that this fairytale wasn't measuring up. Heroes in tales got wise and kindly old grandparents; he was saddled with an acerbic youngster who enjoyed wielding knives _far_ too much. It just wasn't fair. 

* * * 

Gaston was never quite sure why he stayed. At first, it was because Pierre was treating his shoulder, and Gaston wanted to make sure it healed properly. It certainly wasn't for the bed - a larger straw-filled sack on the floor, with a crudely-knit blanket over a piece of sackcloth. By trial and error, Gaston had found that lying on his back was the easiest way of managing his antlers while he slept. He'd scored marks into the wooden roof where he'd tried to stand and briefly forgotten how high those hated prongs reached. 

Pierre came by every day; he had a house in the nearby village, and said he slept there unless he had a patient who needed both isolation and overnight observation. Fortunately for Gaston, he also brought food. 

"What is this swill?" Gaston demanded, disdainfully shoving away the mixing bowl with one paw. Some of the contents slopped over onto the freshly scrubbed table where Pierre had set their lunch. As usual, Gaston was sitting on his straw cushion. Pierre, being human in bulk, sat on the single chair. 

"Vegetable soup," Pierre replied calmly between spoonfuls from his own, smaller bowl. 

_"Vegetable soup,"_ growled Gaston. "Where is the meat, the eggs? I'm injured, not sick. I need good strong food, not this slop!" 

"And yet, this is what you've got," Pierre said, raising an eyebrow. "I have two hard-boiled eggs from the Widow Desrosiers once you've finished your soup; meat will have to wait until butchering season, unless a cow or pig or sheep dies." 

_I could make that happen sooner_ , was Gaston's first thought. Then he remembered how difficult even a sheep had been to bring down without a firearm, and thought again. Rabbits, though - he could trap those. A pit trap or a noose could take a sheep, but those would be obvious, and why go to the effort when he could take a deer instead? He'd need more strength in his arm, but if he had access to the right materials, he could make plenty of traps. "Have you no hunters?" he asked instead. 

"Ours is a farming village," Pierre said with a shrug. "Sometimes the children go out with slingshots, in the summer. One of the boys used to go out to hunt regularly, but he went to join the army. He did not come back." 

Silently, Gaston pulled the bowl of soup back towards him and started to ladle it up with the large wooden spoon he'd been provided with. To his annoyance, it tasted better than he'd expected. 

* * * 

"I'm bored." 

"You can come help me measure out herbs, then," Pierre said briskly, his attention more than half on the jar of - whatever - that he was making up. 

"I'm not _that_ bored," Gaston said hastily. 

Pierre frowned and went back to crumbling some kind of dried fern. 

* * * 

"Gaston, what do you know about skinning rabbits?" 

Gaston brightened. At least, something he knew about!" "Why, everything," he boasted. "I started skinning rabbits when I was six years old. I can take the hide off rabbits, deer, wolves . . ." 

"Rabbits will do for now," Pierre interrupted, shoving a dead rabbit and a sharp, large-handled knife into Gaston's paws. "There's a bench outside where you can gut it. Bring it back to me when you're done - half of it is going to be your dinner." 

Gaston took rabbit and knife outside, shoulders relaxing as he soaked in the warmth of the late afternoon sunshine. Even with a damaged arm, the rhythm of skinning and gutting soothed Gaston. He never bothered to wonder why Pierre, with his human-sized hands, owned a brand new knife that his smaller fingers would have difficulty holding. 

Behind him, a rose petal drifted to the ground. 

* * * 

Pierre peeled away Gaston's bandages and peered at the wound, the act as much a part of their evening ritual as the vile herbal tea Pierre insisted on. "Hmm," Pierre said, prodding at the area around it. "Healing nicely. Infection's gone. You'll have a scar, of course, but otherwise you should be fine." 

Gaston twisted his head to look down as his shoulder, nearly going cross-eyed in an attempt to see over his snout. Even without being able to see, he could feel the difference - the horrible itching had stopped, and his shoulder felt no hotter than the surrounding flesh. "How can anything be fine when I look like this?" he groused. 

Pierre ignored him. "No bandages tonight. You need to let the skin breathe. I don't advise any vigorous exercise that might break the scab or tear open the new hide, but you should be fine to wander around the forest." 

"Good," Gaston said shortly. The sooner he was healed, the sooner he'd be out of here. 

"If it starts itching again, use that salve I gave you. I don't care if it stinks, use it." Pierre resettled his glasses on his nose and nodded in satisfaction. "Right. I'm off home. Sleep well." 

Gaston let Pierre's lamplight dwindle nearly out of sight before he followed. It was a bobbing speck of brightness in the distance, sometimes here, sometimes gone, but always following a well-worn trail. Gaston had been walking in the wrong direction to have spotted the path when he'd arrived, but perhaps that was a good thing. If he'd followed it down to the village, he'd have gone around it and never known Pierre existed. 

It didn't take long; the village was only a mile or so away from Pierre's workroom. Gaston could hear the noises of the village long before he saw it; the crunch of boots on soil, the soft susurrus of voices, the bark of dogs. Sounds that were so familiar that Gaston felt an odd tightness in his throat and a sharp longing for something he hadn't even known he'd missed. 

Hiding in the shadow of a convenient horse chestnut tree, Gaston watched the lantern pass through the first ring of houses and vanish. 

"Pierre!" called a high, glad voice. "Thank you for that rabbit quarter, it was a lovely addition to the stew. I'll have your food ready for you tomorrow at the usual time." 

Gaston blinked, and belatedly remembered that Pierre had mentioned a Widow Desrosiers. Of course Pierre was getting the food from somewhere; of course it had to be paid for. This village was not his village, it owed him nothing. 

A giggle interrupted his thoughts, the patter of little feet pulling his attention towards the small girl who was chasing a rolling hoop out between the houses. The hoop was nearly was tall as she was, and her attempts to corral it with a stick did little. It fell over not far from where he hid. 

"Cécile!" called another woman's voice. "Come back here!" It's not safe in the forest at night." 

"Coming, Maman," Cécile called back, awkwardly gathering up the hoop and lugging it back towards the village. 

As quietly as he could, Gaston snuck away, heading back to Pierre's workshop. 

* * * 

"Hmmm. I'm nearly out of hope's breath and lady's fan." Pierre peered into a near-empty jar, then nodded decisively. "Time for you to earn your keep, Gaston. The best patch of lady's fan grows near where a wolf pack hunt. They usually ignore me, but one afternoon spent up a tree is one too many. I'd still be there now if a deer hadn't stumbled on the clearing and led them away." 

"You shall come to no harm under my protection," Gaston announced. Pierre smiled slightly, one of his rare dry smiles that was mostly in his eyes, and Gaston suddenly felt appreciated for the first time since . . . since LeFou had roused the entire tavern to sing his praises. He'd forgotten how good it felt. Good enough, in fact, that Gaston realised he was wearing a smile of his own as he and Pierre left the shack with empty baskets. 

_"That's_ why you do this!" Gaston exclaimed a few minutes later, eyes widening as he held aside a branch for Pierre to duck under. "If you help people, they appreciate you, and you feel good!"

"Perhaps a little," Pierre allowed. "It does feel good when they're grateful, but gratitude passes quickly. And what of those who offer no thanks, who I may never see again? Should I not treat them?" 

Gaston opened his mouth. And hesitated. 

Under those rules, Pierre should never have treated _him_ , and yet he had taken in the brute that Gaston had become. Gaston had seen enough infected wounds, and could guess how his own would have progressed. He'd have lost his arm, and perhaps the poison would even have reached his heart. Without Pierre slapping his claws away from the itching wound, lecturing him on hygiene, and applying smelly salves and disgusting teas, Gaston would not be whole today. 

"Thank you," Gaston said eventually, a shimmering red petal lying unseen in his footprint. 

"You're welcome," Pierre said serenely. 

* * * 

Gaston's muscles strained as he held the horse's head down. Stupid creature, to get itself lost in the forest - and the owner was a bigger fool, to secure it so poorly that it could pull its reins away from its ties and wander off. 

He hauled the wild-eyed animal a few more paces along the trail, the two rabbits he'd trapped earlier thudding lifelessly against his hip. Couldn't the fool beast see that he was trying to help it? If Gaston could get it back to the village, maybe it would find its owner. The horse might not to blame for acting like . . . well, a horse . . . but you didn't abandon something that relied on you. That was worse than careless. 

"Hey! You! That's my horse!" 

Gaston was suddenly, fervently glad for the enormous, hooded grey cloak that Pierre had pieced together out of a couple of blankets. _"In case you meet someone out in the forest,"_ Pierre had said, and no explanation was needed on either side. It fitted awkwardly over his antlers, but it was enough to conceal them.

The voice was behind him, so Gaston loosed the horse's reins from his paw before the haughty-voiced man could notice that his hide wasn't a glove. The horse promptly bolted again, but Gaston didn't care this time. He'd tried helping, and this man clearly didn't want to be helped. 

"Thief! Poacher! Turn around and face me! I'll have your hands for this, giant or no!" There was a scrambling noise, the click of a bolt against a wooden stock, and the twang of a bowstring as the man tried to pull the string back. 

He knew the forest by now, from his trips to catch rabbits and the occasional deer, and from Pierre's constant need for fresh herbs. He still needed feverfew, now that he no longer had a horse to wrangle, and there was a good patch to the north. 

Before the horse's owner had even finished cocking his crossbow, Gaston had vanished from sight. 

* * * 

By the time the snow fell, Gaston had settled in to life with Pierre. The young herbalist had made no mention of wanting Gaston to move on, and as far as Gaston was concerned, why should he leave when this situation was so much to his advantage? True, he missed the company of others, but if he left he would not even have Pierre's acerbic wit to listen to. 

Fresh-fallen snow crunched under Gaston's bootless feet, the few remaining birds chirping sleepily in the trees as the morning sun lit up the world in white. The brightness made him wince, but it was worse for Pierre, who'd taken to walking on Gaston's shadow side to shield his eyes from the unforgiving glare. 

"I brought you a good chunk of that wild boar you killed for us," Pierre said offhandedly as Gaston checked a rabbit snare. "Cold, of course, but it was well roasted - it shouldn't be hard to heat it over the fire in the workshop." 

Gaston's tongue - longer than it had once been - ran over his warped lips. "About time. I haven't had a decent piece of meat since I found that broken-legged deer." 

Pierre smacked Gaston's arm in admonishment. "Even for you, an all-meat diet is unhealthy. If you don't eat the winter greens I brought, there'll be no more bread and no more cheese for you." 

Gaston grumbled more for form's sake than any real disgruntlement, tied the dead rabbit to his belt, and reset the snare. "That boar would have gone after the village if I hadn't killed it. It was feral, not wild." And twice as dangerous, for a pig once tame had never learned to fear humans.

Pierre nodded soberly. "I know. When we were cutting it up, the butcher noticed the mark of one of the farmers from the next village over. They wanted to thank you in person." 

Gaston closed his eyes, again seeing the memory of his brutish face in the water's reflection. "No. I will not go among them when I look like - like _this_. They'd drive me out of town." 

"They know you're disfigured," Pierre said mildly. 

Gaston choked, fell over a log that had been hidden under snow, and lay sprawled in stupefied amazement for a moment. "You told them _what_?" 

Pierre prodded him in the side with a toe. "They were curious about my mysterious patient. Did you think they wouldn't ask why I needed so much food? Or where the rabbits are suddenly coming from when they know I'm not a trapper? I told them you were badly wounded and disfigured, and that you preferred not to be seen." Pierre looked thoughtful for a moment as Gaston hauled himself up into a sitting position. "I think they believe you're a former soldier who was wounded in battle. We've had one or two from the village - they don't come back the same. They don't speak to their wives, or their friends, just sit in the tavern and drink. At least here, you're out in the fresh air." 

Gaston was about to reply to that - although what he could have said, he wasn't sure - when a growl split the peaceful morning air. The birds flew away shrieking, and Gaston sprang to his feet and placed himself between Pierre and danger. 

Uphill, standing on the very path the two had been about to take, stood a wolf. His bones showed through his thin fur, and he bore the scars of former fights all over his body. A lone wolf, rejected by his pack, and undoubtedly hungry enough to try for human. 

Gaston growled back, stalking forwards. He and the wolves of the forest had an unspoken agreement, tentative but present; they would not attack him, and he would not harm them. Once or twice, he'd left rabbit heads and entrails in places near where they denned, and he knew the scraps would have his scent on them. They knew him. This wolf however, seemed not to care. He sprang forward - but not towards Gaston, towards Pierre, half-blind without the spectacles he'd left at home. 

Gaston reached out and grabbed the wolf by the scruff of its neck as it bounded past. Using its momentum, he swung it around and into a tree. The wolf slumped, dazed, and Gaston turned to see if Pierre was alright. 

Sharp claws pierced the thick hide of Gaston's back, the powerful leap enough to topple Gaston from his feet. He rolled over and the wolf sprang away, but Gaston wasn't letting it go. Not now. He grabbed the wolf's hind leg and pulled it towards him, and the wolf turned and leapt once more. 

Gaston, instinctively, lowered his head and lunged forward. There was a sudden weight on his horns, a cut-off yelp, and the feeling of blood oozing down his antlers. Gaston lifted his hands and shoved, and the carcass of the wolf slid off his horns to thud at his feet. 

Pierre shuffled up beside Gaston as the latter stared down at the dead wolf. "You saved my life," Pierre said, sounding surprised. "Thank you." 

"I owed you," Gaston growled, though in the heat of the moment he hadn't even considered the debt he owed to Pierre. He'd just acted.

Pierre shrugged, still a little white-faced. "All right. Then we'd better go back to the cabin where I can clean you up and tend to your injuries. _Again._ " 

* * * 

Under the comforting dark of a new moon, Gaston laid out the day's offering on a tree stump just outside the village's boundary. The occasional rabbit, Pierre could carry, but when it came to larger game, Gaston had declared that he would haul it himself. He'd saved a leg of the venison for himself, but the rest of the deer was for the village. 

"Are you M'sieur Pierre's hunter friend?" 

The bright inquiry made Gaston go still. He hadn't bothered putting the hood of the cloak up, and his antlers were showing clearly. He could only hope it was dark enough that the child wouldn't notice. 

Faint hope, as it turned out. "Are you a hunt god?" the girl asked as she edged around him to look up, curious with no hint of fear in her eyes. Memory stirred, of this girl chasing a hoop that was rolling too fast for her. What had her mother called her? "Maman says that the old gods are still out here, and they look after us." 

And perhaps, six months ago, Gaston would have proudly claimed divinity and leveraged it into being treated as he'd thought he deserved. But Gaston was not that man now, still hardly thought of himself as a man at all. "No," Gaston said, trying to keep the brute's growl out of his voice. "Not a god. Just a - a friend." The word felt odd in his mouth, but the girl's casual use of it had brought it to the front of his mind. 

"Oh!" The girl - Cécile, that was her name - smiled at him, and he found himself trying to smile back. The result must have been dreadful, but the child didn't flinch. "Thank you for everything, M'sieur Hunter. My little brother got sick two weeks ago, but he's better now because he could have rabbit stew. Maman says that's the only reason he lived." 

After that first time when Gaston had followed Pierre home, he'd never bothered wondering what happened to the meat he brought in. The villagers were mostly an abstract concept to him still, and he'd given no thought to it past Pierre's assurances that the bounty was shared out. Now, though, his mind populated the village with faces, mostly imagined from those of his old village, but people nonetheless. The butcher, the baker, the cooper and the egg-seller - the children, the grandmothers, the men at the tavern and the women at the well. 

Unaware that Gaston's world was silently and painlessly expanding inside his head, Cécile reached out and daringly patted Gaston's nearest leg. 

Jolted out of his reverie, Gaston attempted another smile. "I - good. That's good," he said awkwardly. "I should go." 

Thankfully, Cécile backed away. "I hope I see you again, M'sieur Hunter!" she said cheerfully. 

"Maybe," Gaston allowed, backing away as if the child were more terrifying than any forest hazard. Then he turned and ran into the comforting dark of the night-time forest. 

Behind him, Cécile bent in curiosity as something sparkled on the ground, and picked up a rose petal. 

* * * 

"Pierre?" Gaston called as he ducked through the door. "The ice on the river is starting to break up, and the fish will be -" 

Gaston stopped abruptly at the sight in front of him. Pierre was curled up on Gaston's bed, shivering, looking both pale and flushed, his rasping breath giving Gaston's own a run for its money. Pierre's eyes were closed, but his limbs shifted restlessly. The herbalist hadn't looked all too healthy that morning, but Gaston had figured he was in the best place to self-medicate, and he'd sternly forbidden Pierre from leaving the relative warmth of the workshop. 

"Pierre!" Gaston dropped heavily to his knees, reaching out one large paw to gently touch Pierre's forehead. Hotter than it should be, even though the thick skin of Gaston's palm, the rest of Pierre's body giving off a similar heat even as the man shivered. 

For all the months he'd lived in Pierre's workshop, Gaston hadn't picked up much in the way of healing illnesses. Wounds he was halfway certain of, but this? Should he cover up Pierre or let him cool down? 

Nodding to himself, Gaston pulled his wolfskin rug over Pierre's shivering body, and was rewarded by a decrease in the shuddering. Gaston spared a brief smile for the irony of the rug's help, the one that Pierre had had the village tanner make, then turned to the shelves and cupboards. "Fever-tea . . . fever-tea . . ." he muttered, large paws clumsy as he rifled through Pierre's stocks. It was hard to get the kettle boiling, to spoon out what he hoped was the right dose, but Gaston managed in the end, abandoning the handle and picking the hot kettle up in both paws to pour the mixture into a mug. 

Patiently, Gaston forced Pierre to wake up and drink, reminding him of when he'd made Gaston drink this awful stuff, and how did he like it now, hmm? Pierre barely responded, curled up in the blanket, but he drank the cup down and then went back to sleep. 

Then, when there was nothing else he could think of, Gaston had to face the fact that he couldn't give Pierre the care he needed here. He'd have to bring him to the village. The seductive thought that he could leave Pierre on the tree stump enticed him for a moment, but Gaston looked at the thought head on and rejected it. No. The ice might be cracking, the snows might be melting, but it was too cold to leave a sick man outside for a moment longer than he had to. If he was lucky, he'd be able to put Pierre down in sight of one of the villagers before they ran him off. He'd have to leave, and he didn't want to, but Pierre's life was worth more than his comfort. Gaston could survive out there again. 

Decision made, Gaston tucked the jar of fever-tea into Pierre's slack arms and gathered up man, rug, and jar as if they weighed no more than a bird. He never even noticed that the rose on the table behind him was down to its last three petals. 

* * * 

"M'sieur Hunter!" 

Gaston's knees went weak with relief as he saw Cécile turn towards him, abandoning her snow-sculptures in favour of running up to him. "Cécile, you must go get help, quick. Pierre is very sick, he needs help." 

Cécile nodded quickly. "Come on, this way!" 

Gaston balked. "Into the village? Cécile, I can't - not with the way I look, I'd -" 

Cécile placed one tiny hand on the back of his leg, and pushed. "I can't carry him, and you said he needs help. This is fastest," she pointed out inarguably. 

Reluctantly, Gaston began to move. Cécile ran ahead, dashing backwards and forwards as Gaston lumbered along with his fragile burden. As soon as they were close enough, Cécile ran into the village, her high-pitched child's voice calling for help and that M'sieur Hunter was bringing M'sieur Pierre. Gaston gritted his teeth and followed, expecting angry shouts and pelting stones at any moment. 

No such shouts came. Instead, a businesslike woman in a red kerchief and brown dress ran up beside him, trotting along to match Gaston's longer stride. "Bring him in there - that's his house," she said, pointing. "Oh, you brought the fever-tea? Well done. Some of the villagers have gone ahead to light the fire and set things up. We may not be herbalists, but we know how to take care of our own." 

"Thank you," Gaston managed, feeling so relieved and light that he thought he might drift away on the breeze. He changed course for the indicated house, a snug little three-roomed thatched cottage with medicinal planets instead of flowers in the boxes outside the windows. 

Once inside, Gaston gently lowered Pierre to the bed and backed away, his place taken immediately by the brisk woman who'd guided him here and a man in the clothes of a farmer. His antlers knocked against the door frame and he ducked, shuffling outside where he could stand up straight again. 

"Excuse me," said a polite, if slightly wary, voice. Gaston turned and looked down to see a red-cheeked man with flour on his apron, his arms crossed over his chest. "So, you're Pierre's hunter? The one who's been bringing us meat through the winter?"

Inexplicably tongue-tied, Gaston nodded. 

"Why are you helping us?" 

Gaston opened his mouth, and then shut it again. Why? It had started as a way to get the meat he himself wanted, but why had he then gone and brought back extra? Why gift it to people who had never even seen him?" 

Cecile reappeared from around the back of the house. "Because he loves us, of course, Papa!" she said, rolling her eyes at the oblivious grown-ups. 

_Because I love them._

Gaston's eyes went wide, and the floaty feeling he'd had earlier returned a hundred-fold. He turned to a gentle touch on his arm, and saw the woman in the red kerchief smiling up at him. He looked at the baker, at Cécile, at the townsfolk standing in the street outside, and saw them all looking at him as if - as if they cared. 

It felt like light hitting every part of him, inside and outside, flesh and heart and soul. His feet gently detached from the ground, and he was warm and glad and joyous, and he could feel the brute's appearance melting away like snow in sunlight. 

And then he touched down, and every villager was gaping at him. All except Cécile, who latched onto his leg and hugged it. 

Smiling, Gaston reached out with his hand - his human hand - and ruffled her hair. 

* * * 

Firm fingers on his chin woke Gaston out of his doze, the armchair he'd pushed up next to Pierre's bedside having proved too comfortable to stay awake in. He blinked open confused blue eyes to see Pierre, awake and alert and looking much better than he had for the past few delirious days, frowning at him. 

"Who are -" Pierre began. Then the grip on Gaston's jaw tightened, and Pierre peered into his eyes. "Oh. It's you, Gaston." The herbalist settled back into his bed. "I think I preferred you as the brute." 

Gaston's laughter rang out of the window and into the street outside.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:
> 
> \- Gaston gets shot in the shoulder and the wound gets infected.  
> \- The bullet has to be cut out.  
> \- Gaston fights a wolf and kills it fairly graphically.


End file.
